“Da!” Malcom shouted at seeing him. He came running, leaping into Iain’s arms, his smile brilliant, his eyes shining.
Iain laughed as he caught his son. He squeezed him tightly, embracing him unabashedly.
“Glenna told me no’ to pester ye,” Malcom complained. “She said I couldna go an’ wake ye!”
Iain’s grin widened at hearing his son’s grievance. “Did she now?”
“Aye,” Malcom declared, squeezing him back with all the strength his stout little arms possessed. “I wanna ride your shoulders, da!” he declared.
“Verra well, y’ wee auld man.”
Malcom giggled a mischievous little giggle and nearly strangled Iain with his glee. When, at last, he released the hold upon his throat, Iain hoisted his son atop his shoulders and waited until he was settled before making his way toward the gathering of kinsmen. “Well, now,” he remarked, more to himself than to Malcom. “I see everyone is ready at hand.”
“Aye, da, but dinna worry. We didna begin withoot ye.”
“I see ye didna,” Iain remarked blithely, and thanked his son for standing in for him while he’d been else-wise occupied.
“Aw... dinna fash yourself, da. I told ‘em ye couldna help yourself.”
“Ho!” Iain choked in surprise. “Did ye now?”
“Aye, and Angus said I had the right o’ it, too.”
“Did he now?”
“Aye! He said ye been without a woman too long.”
Iain strangled on a chuckle. He made a mental note to speak with Angus about Malcom’s premature education. Och, but he thought his son understood far too much for his tender age.
Then again, he reconsidered, mayhap ’twas for the best. God, but he knew better than any that one could not control fate. Were he to cock up his toes this very night, or tomorrow, or the next, Malcom would need every wisp of knowledge he might possess in order to survive. Aye, for he could shelter his son only so far. MacKinnon men had not the luxury of languishing in boyhood. Damn, but they were pulled from the womb as men, with the weight of the clan upon their shoulders, and the shadows of their predecessors pecking at their backs. In truth, though Iain had vowed to allow Malcom as ordinary a boyhood as was conceivable, he was sworn by birthright, and by duty, to prepare his son to lead.
“Well, now,” Iain began.
“Awwww, dinna worry, da,” Malcom broke in as he wrapped his chubby little hands around Iain’s chin and laid his own chin atop the pate of Iain’s head. Iain savored the feel of his son’s wee pointy chin needling the crown of his head. Och, but it wouldn’t be long before this was naught more than a pleasant memory. The thought made him sigh wistfully. “I understand,” Malcom said, his tone conspiratorial.
Iain’s brow furrowed. “D’ ye now, son?”
“Aye, da,” his son declared with a certainty. “I been without a woman too long, too,” he revealed somewhat dejectedly.
Iain choked, but not solely because of the little hands that were now tightening their grip upon his throat. Bones o’ the bloody saints, he wasn’t certain whether to be amused or disconcerted by his son’s revelation. “You’ve been without a woman too long?” he repeated with no small measure of surprise.
“Aw, yeah, da!” Malcom answered resolutely. “Och, but I been thinkin’ it would be a guid thing to have a lassie aboot to croon me to sleep now and again.”
Iain chuckled at his son’s waggish admission. Struggling to contain his mirth, he whacked his son’s leg affectionately, and smiled as he walked.
“Oh, da,” Malcom ventured once more.
“Aye, Malcom?”
“Di’ she sing ye a guid lay, I was wonderin’?”
Iain blinked at the innocent question.
“I heard cousin Lagan say she was gonna gi’ ye one.”
It took Iain a full moment to realize what it was his son was asking. Damn, but he asked the question with such childish innocense that it made his heart squeeze. No matter that Malcom had no notion what it was he was asking, Iain’s heartbeat sped at the memory. His face and neck heated. Had she ever—with her sweet, passionate whimpers and her pleas. Her open desire for him had been like a balm for his soul. But God’s teeth, he wasn’t about to tell his son that it was the finest lay he’d ever had in his life.
“Aye, Malcom,” Iain confessed, clearing his throat. “She sings sweeter than any woman I e’er did hear.”
“I thought so, Da,” Malcom avowed. “She croons better than cousin Lagan, of a certain.”
Iain’s brows lifted in surprise. “Lagan?” He stopped walking, surprised by the disclosure. Damn, but though Lagan had always been good enough to Malcom, Iain could scarce imagine his dour-faced cousin croonin’ to anyone. “Lagan sang ye to sleep, Malcom?”
“Aye, da,” his son assured him. “He surely did.”
“I’ll be damned,” Iain declared. “Now, when did he go and do a thing like that?”
“Hmmmm...”
Iain imagined his son’s scrunched nose as he concentrated, and couldn’t keep from smiling once more.
“I dunno, da,” Malcom yielded after a moment’s deliberation. “But he surely did. I canna remember when, but I know he surely did.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Iain said again, and started once more toward the gathering. He decided there was much about his cousin that he had yet to learn.
“Oh, da?”
“Aye, son?”
“I was wonderin’ too... does she sing a finer lilt than did me minnie?”
Once again Iain halted in his step, his heart squeezing within his chest. His brows drew together at the simple question, and he swallowed the knob that appeared in his throat, answering honestly. “I dunno, Malcom. I never did hear your minnie sing, at all.”
“Oh.”
There was keen disappointment in the single word. Iain heard it and his heart twisted.
“Da, you’re hurtin’ me leg,” Malcom said, a frown in his voice.
Starting at the complaint, Iain eased his grip upon Malcom’s little legs at once. He sucked in a breath and said, “Forgive me, son.” He swallowed the grief that rose to choke him, though it was no longer grief for himself. “You know what, though, son,” he lied with ease, for Malcom’s sake. “She woulda sung to ye... if she could have..””
“D’ y’ think so, da?”
The note of hope in his voice was like vin aigre spilled into a freshly healing wound. Iain’s eyes stung, though not from the smoke of the raging bonfire. The image of Mairi standing before the window, her eyes burning with hatred, rose up to mock him. There was no doubt in his mind that she had left them both, for she’d left him standing there with their brand-new bairn cradled within his arms. Still, he forced the lie from his lips. Again for Malcom’s sake. “I know so, son,” he swore vehemently. “I know so. Had she been able to see your wee li’l face, she would have sung to you. I know it.”
“I would have liked that, da,” Malcom exclaimed, and Iain could hear the smile in his son’s voice. His jaw clenched, and he closed his eyes, swallowing the curse that rose to his lips.
Damn Mairi’s soul to hell.
“What about you? Did your mammie e’er sing to you, da?”
Iain opened his eyes, watching the gathering at the bonfire as he considered the question, uncertain as to why he hesitated, for the answer could only be no. He closed his eyes once more and contemplated the woman’s voice from his dream—the song, the eyes—and was filled with keen frustration. “Nay,” he answered, confused. He opened his eyes to stare at the bonfire, frowning.
And it occurred to him suddenly that his own mother’s death had gone undiscussed much too long. It was something he and his son shared in common, the lack of a mother from birth, and yet he’d grown so accustomed to it being an unspeakable matter between himself and his own da that he’d never even thought to broach it with his son.
As a boy, Iain had asked questions interminably, only to be turned away at every occasion. And not merely by h
is father, but by every last clansman who might have known his ma. If your da wants ye to know, they had all persistently told him, he’ll tell ye himself. Och, but his da had never told him a damned thing, and after a while, Iain had quit asking altogether. All he knew of his mother, he’d learned from his aunt Glenna, and even that was precious little.
If Iain hadn’t known better, that his da had loved his mother fiercely, that he’d mourned her death till the day he’d died, he’d have thought her name a blasphemy in his house, for it had surely been unspeakable within his presence... and without.
“Da?” Malcom ventured once more, breaking into his gloom-filled thoughts.
“Aye, Malcom?”
“D’ ye think she would mind if I called her mammy?”
“Who, Malcom?”
“Page.”
Iain went perfectly still at the question.
“I think ye would do better to call her Suisan,” Page heard him tell his son.
She’d overheard enough of their conversation to feel the sting of tears prick her eyes. She hadn’t meant to, but had nevertheless, and now she didn’t know whether to make her presence known, or to turn about and flee.
Drawn by the firelight and the melancholy sound of the reed, she had come upon father and son standing there together in the shadows of the night, speaking softly with each other. A private conversation such as that Page might have longed for as a child. Lord, but she might have... had she known it possible to share such confidences. She stemmed the flood of envy that rose to nag her.
Ahead of them, the fire’s glow was a beacon in the dark of night.
A lone piper stood before it, playing his instrument with such funereal intensity that it seduced her feet to move forward. Curiosity along with the piper’s song drew her to Iain’s side to watch the strange gathering.
It seemed every last clan member was present for the occasion, their silhouettes congregated before the fire like moths before torchlight.
Both father and son turned to peer down at her.
For a long instant, Page couldn’t find her voice to speak, so moved was she by Malcom’s sweet question. Still they stared down at her.
“He can call me anything he likes,” she yielded softly. “Page is fine.”
A moment of silence passed between them while Iain stared down at her with unblinking eyes. “I thought you preferred Suisan,” he said at long last.
Page drew in a breath. “I thought I would,” she replied, holding his gaze, unblinking, as well. “Till just this instant I thought I would.” It occurred to her suddenly that her name was simply that, a name. In a sense, it was a badge of honor for all she’d suffered at her father’s hands. But no more did she feel shamed by it. To the contrary, she felt pride—because she’d endured. Because she was unbroken still. Jesu, but what greater revenge could she have over her misbegotten father than to live, and to live well, to walk with pride? Who could dare pity her when her heart was filled with gladness?
“I’ve decided,” she told them both, a slight smile crooking her lips, “that I like my name, after all.”
Iain’s beautiful lips curved at her declaration. “D’ ye now?”
“Aye,” Page answered flippantly, lifting a brow. “I believe I rather do.” Her heart swelled with a strange elation that she couldn’t quite fathom... and yet it was there... a keen, overwhelming sense of joy that was both unfamiliar and titillating.
Iain’s grin widened, and even in the darkness, Page could see the glimmer of his smile and the amused twinkle in his eyes.
She turned away, feeling strangely elated. “What are they doing?” she asked father and son together.
She watched the clansmen from the corners of her eyes.
“‘Tis for Ranald,” Iain told her, still scrutinizing her. Page turned to peer up at him. Illuminated by the distant firelight, his face was startlingly beautiful with its hard masculine lines. And his youthful features were striking in contrast with the bold silver at his temples. Her heart fluttered within her breast. “Our way of saying goodbye,” he revealed.
Page turned to regard the bonfire with new eyes, and at once focused upon the crudely constructed scaffold near it. Understanding dawned, and her smile at once twisted into a grimace. “Dear God! You plan to burn him!”
“Aye, lass,” Iain answered.
“Sweet Heaven above! Why? Jesu, but ‘tis barbaric!”
He merely chuckled. “Mayhap so.”
“No mayhap about it! Poor Ranald!”
“It canna be helped, Page.”
It was the first time he’d spoken her name, and Page lifted her face to meet his gaze, her heart leaping at the sound of it upon his lips.
“Ye canna bury a man in stone,” he yielded, his tone soft and matter-of-fact. The firelight flickered within his eyes, and the glimmer was both sad and amused at once. “Chreagach Mhor is built upon solid rock. No spade can turn soil so unyielding as this.”
“Oh,” Page replied. He turned again to watch the mourners before the fire. So, too, did Page.
“The stone walls of my home,” he revealed, “were carved from these cliffs so long ago that not even my forefathers could recall whose hands first hewed them. And still they stand.”
He turned to peer over his shoulder at the strange tapered donjon that loomed behind them. Page followed his gaze. “Every last stone remains in place.”
She thought of her father’s endless repairs, and conceded, “’Tis remarkable.”
She was remarkable.
Iain found himself staring, admiring the proud tilt of her head, the stubborn lift of her chin, and the soft curve of her lips. He could scarce conceive that the woman he was seeing was the same woman he had thought to pity. There was naught about her bearing that elicited such a response from him this moment. Naught at all. She seemed taller even—something he’d never quite noticed about her—and he frowned, for she was perchance taller than any woman he’d e’er known.
She found she liked the name, did she? The vixen!
Och, but oddly enough, he found he suddenly liked the name, too.
Her face, illumined by the distant firelight, was aglow with something new... something he couldn’t quite place. Something delightful and heartening.
And his heart... it, too, was filled with something new... something deep and warm and yearning.
Something he dared not fully embrace lest he wake one unspeakable morn to find her expression rife with repulsion. He’d sworn to protect and care for her, aye, but love was an entanglement best eschewed.
chapter 28
The funeral extended well into the night.
In his own manner, every last kinsman present paid last respects to poor Ranald, and then Iain lit a torch from the bonfire and set the pyre to flame. Ranald’s mother stood by, wailing. A few others wept softly. Most stood silent, their faces somber and their eyes melancholy. Among them, a lone piper played his reed, the melody both hypnotic and forlorn—and still a few others danced curiously to his strangely buoyant song.
Page watched in both revulsion and awe as the fire licked its way up the scaffold toward the body wrapped in new blankets. And even once the flames reached the platform she couldn’t make herself look away.
As she watched the flames consume, she felt curiously removed. For an instant, the piper’s sound drifted away, and only the roar of the fire reached her ears. From the corners of her eyes she saw the writhing dancers, and yet her focus remained upon the ashes that rose from the pyre—feathery shadows that floated up and disappeared beyond the rosy light of the bonfire into freedom. Free to roam the earth and settle at will, or not at all. Page imagined herself one of those floating ashes, and felt her soul lift along with it, into the cool black night. She lifted her gaze to peer into the moonless sky and found herself floating, floating... free...
Freedom. It was what she’d always wanted... what she’d sorely craved...
Or was it in truth?
Had she instead only longed
that her father would reach out and snatch her far-wandering soul, and hold her fast against his heart?
Her gaze fastened upon a dark fluttering ash... Were she free to go... free to fly... where would she alight?
The soft sound of children’s voices drew her out of her reverie, and she peered down to spy Malcom and his friends working at catching ashes in their palms.
She watched them an eternity, feeling never more the stranger in their midst.
As she watched them, they gathered what remained of Ranald’s body into their tiny hands, along with those charred wood flakes. They ran, scurrying to catch all that they could, gathering black rain into their little fists. They blackened their faces with the soot, blackened their eager little fingers.
And then as Page watched, they brought the fruits of their labors to Ranald’s mother... handed her the smothered ashes. One by one, they turned over their hands and sprinkled black dust into her cupped hands.
A smile touched her lips as Malcom turned over his own and nothing came forth. He scrunched his little nose as he peered down at his soot-blackened hand, and then he shrugged and wiped his fingers across her upturned hand. She smiled, and after speaking low to the lot of them, stood and lifted up her palms to the sky and let the ashes fly once more. What soot remained, she smeared across her breast—the part of him she would keep—and once again began to weep.
Page’s eyes stung with tears, and the thought struck her that true love was as ungrudging as a mother’s simple but unselfish gesture of releasing her beloved son’s ashes into the wind.
The kitchen reeked of lye soap.
Steam from boiling kettles curled upward to mix with acid fumes, the combination of heat and lye strong enough to burn the lungs from any breathing creature who should merely think to pass by the small stone building. And yet they all remained cheerful within, working diligently at her every command. She didn’t fool herself for an instant; these people were clearly desperate to rid themselves of their fleas and seemed eternally grateful and even eager to comply in any manner conceivable.
The MacKinnon's Bride Page 24
